Halo 5: Guardians Receives First Piece of Concept Art

A blog post from franchise development director Frank O'Connor reveals the art, along with some hints about what the future has in store for us.

"It’s quite likely that Bonnie’s 2015 release announcement today surprised no one in the Halo community. In fact, I suspect most of you who read the Halo Bulletin regularly anticipate there’s even more to come," he writes. "Well you might be right, but we’ll have significantly more to say about that at E3 and beyond. Suffice it to say, another shoe has yet to drop.

"But getting theHalo 5: Guardians announce out of the way is a big weight off our shoulders. This audience has correctly stated and assumed that you can’t necessarily squish a full Halo game into anything less than a three year development schedule – and at least up to and including Halo 5: Guardians, that’s more or less true.

"But we’re not just making a new game in that three year span, we’re also making a new engine. During the development of Halo 4, we pushed the Xbox 360 and the engine to its limits, and we were happy with the way we were able to make the Halo universe look. The Xbox 360 still has a few tricks up its sleeve, even now. We are moving to a whole new platform with the Xbox One – a new architecture, new graphics hardware and bluntly some new ways to think about gaming, period.

"Bonnie also called out 60fps and dedicated servers last year – attractive, desirable, and possibly expected upgrades to the Halo experience. After all, we won’t be the first 60fps shooter out there. That said, these must-haves are not necessarily easy to achieve."

Exit Theatre Mode

O'Connor rounds out the post by all but spelling out the first steps on our journey to Halo 5: Guardians will begin at E3 in June with a big reveal. We'll be there keeping our ears to the ground so, as soon as we have more info, we'll let you know.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter.